Synopses & Reviews
When the Abu Ghraib prison scandal broke in April 2004, many American commentators expressed shock. But, as
The Progressive's Anne-Marie Cusac observed, Abu Ghraib shocks us because our soldiers abroad seem to have acted out behaviors that we condone, yet don't face up to, at home. On the heels of
Our Enemies in Blue, Kristian Williams' controversial chronicle of policing, the writer/activist gives us
American Methods, once again upsetting the notion that the use of excessive force by the state is aberrant rather than altogether American.
American Methods reveals torture not as a recent or rogue phenomenon, but a veteran tool of the American state. As Williams suggests, torture is not, as claimed, a means of interrogation used only by others, elsewhere. Instead, it is a tried-and-true weapon of social control and terror, right here in the US.
Unlike other recent books, American Methods locates war on terror scandals in the systems of inequities and dominance that nurture them. Williams pays close attention to the distinct character of American torture and its gender and racial contours-particularly its emphasis on sexual violence, emasculation, and spectacle. His discussion ranges over much of the globe and a quarter-century: from US support of torture-regimes in Central America in the 1980s to today's more favored approach-outsourcing torture to friendly governments. Returning to our shores, Williams observes the banality of violence in American prisons, precincts, and society. Ultimately, he offers devastating conclusions about the centrality of rape, racism, and conquest to both the state and our national culture.
Review
"Kristian Williams peels away the mythic veneer of American Innocence with an eloquence, power, and precision that stands largely unrivaled. The result is a book which not only deserves, but quite literally demands inclusion among the handful of works essential to understanding where it is we find ourselves at this awful moment in history. Read it if you dare, and especially if you don't." Ward Churchill, author of A Little Matter of Genocide and On the Justice of Roosting Chickens
Review
"American Methods shines an unmediated light on this country's use of torture as an essential component of social control, both at home and abroad. Williams's exhaustive analysis exposes a history of routine brutality in US police, military, and prison interrogation practices. He deftly makes the case that the Abu Ghraib scandal was not an aberrant experiment conducted by a handful of rogue soldiers but part of a long-standing national tradition. An important, thoroughly well-researched and superbly written critique." Tara Herivel, Seattle-based prisoners' attorney and editor of Prison Nation: The Warehousing of America's Poor
Review
"Kristian Williams has done it again. As in his previous work, Our Enemies in Blue, Williams brings a wealth of research to bear on his thinking, his analysis, and his writing....He deftly demonstrates the links between torture abroad and torture at home and the American way of sensationalizing separate events, which blinds us to the ubiquity of this practice, every day, all across the nation....American Methods isn't pretty. It isn't for the faint-hearted. But this is not a time for the faint-hearted. It is a time of trial, a time of strife, a time of near-apocalyptic danger. It is time for American Methods." Mumia Abu-Jamal, author of We Want Freedom
Synopsis
A powerful indictment, American Methods is "not about Abu Ghraib; this is a book about the USA."
About the Author
Kristian Williams' writings have appeared in CounterPunch, Columbia Journalism Review, and We Are Everywhere: The Irresistible Rise of Global Anti-Capitalism. A member of Rose City Copwatch in Portland, Oregon, Williams also authored Our Enemies in Blue (2004).